JPH09166859A - Automatic developing processor for photographic film - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To automatically develop a photographed film only by simply inserting exposed film by providing a device separating photographic film from a cartridge and a splicing device splicing the end part of the photographic film and a processing tank including a developing tank or the like. SOLUTION: A cutter 213 is provided at the film pulling port of a photosensitive material supplying part 21, and when the nearly entire part of film F is pulled out from the cartridge P, the film F is cut by the actuation of the cutter 213, so that it is separated from the cartridge P. The splicing device 24 butting and connecting the leading edge of the film F pulled out and the trailing edge of the film F already carried out to a processing part 3 is provided on a side where the film F is carried out to a reading means 25. The film F is carried by a path shown by double dotted chain lines, and is successively immersed in processing solution at the inside of the developing tank 31, a bleaching tank 32, a fixing tank 33, a washing tank 34 and a stabilizing tank 35, so that processing is made.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an automatic processing apparatus for photographic film for photography.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A silver halide photographic light-sensitive material (hereinafter sometimes abbreviated as light-sensitive material or light-sensitive material) is a color light-sensitive material.
After the exposure, it is processed by steps such as color development, desilvering, washing with water and stabilization. A color developing solution is used for color development processing, a bleaching solution, a fixing solution, a bleach-fixing solution for desilvering processing, tap water for washing, and stable for stabilizing processing. On the other hand, the black-and-white photographic material is processed by black-and-white development, fixing and washing with water instead of color development. The temperature of each processing solution is usually adjusted to 20 to 50 ° C., and the color or black-and-white photographic material is immersed in these processing solutions for processing.

In order to carry out the processing of such a light-sensitive material commercially, in order to reduce the cost and human labor, reduce the pollution load, make the processing apparatus compact, and further improve the commercial value, the amount of processing should be as small as possible. It is required that the treatment liquid has stable and excellent treatment performance.

In order to reduce manual labor, an apparatus which can develop a photographed film by simply inserting it into an automatic processor is desired. In this way, even a layperson can perform development processing.

In order to obtain stable processing performance, it is essential that the composition of the processing solution is always kept within a certain range.
Further, in order to obtain excellent performance, it is necessary to uniformly and uniformly immerse the treatment liquid in a sufficient amount.

Therefore, in the commercial processing of color photosensitive material, an automatic developing machine having a processing tank storing a large amount of processing liquid is used as in a color developing station, and every time a certain amount of color photosensitive material is processed. It is designed such that the composition of the stored processing liquid is always within a certain range by automatically replenishing the replenishing liquid that corrects the fatigue of the processing liquid.

On the other hand, recently, there are demands for diversification of consumers' preference, immediate color prints, and color processing as a side job, so that the processing of color photosensitive materials is concentrated at a large-scale developing laboratory. We are rapidly moving from processing to decentralized small-scale processing by minilabs, and further to small-volume and rapid processing. By the way, the processing solution used in the step of processing a film that has already been photographed, such as the development processing and the bleaching processing, changes the amount of silver developed depending on the exposure amount, and the degree of fatigue of the processing solution (hereinafter referred to as “fatigue degree”). ")) Is different.

Conventionally, the operator has estimated the degree of fatigue of the treatment liquid and determined the treatment conditions in consideration of the number and length of the treated films.

However, since the amount of silver developed by exposure differs depending on the exposure conditions, and the exposure conditions also differ for each exposure screen, the fatigue level of the treatment liquid differs for each film.

Therefore, in order to obtain a more favorable and uniform processing screen, it is preferable to determine the processing conditions for each film in consideration of the exposure state of each film.

In particular, in a minilab, which is used for a small amount of rapid processing as described above, the apparatus is small and the processing liquid filled in the processing tank is small, so that it is used for processing one film. The ratio of the fatigue liquid to the treatment liquid amount becomes large. For this reason, it is desirable to determine the processing conditions in consideration of the amount of developed silver that differs for each film.

[0012]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to solve the above-mentioned drawbacks of the prior art, to enable automatic development simply by inserting a film that has been photographed, and to obtain suitable processing conditions for each film to be processed. It is an object of the present invention to provide an automatic developing processing device for a photo film which can be processed by.

[0013]

This and other objects are achieved by the present invention which is defined below as (1) to (3). (1) Sensitive material supplying section for holding a cartridge in which a photographic film for photographing is stored, a tip-out device for ejecting the tip of the photographic film for photographing from the cartridge, and reading for reading photographing information carried on the photographic film for photographing. An automatic developing process for a photographic film for photography, comprising: a device, a device for separating the photographic film for photography from a cartridge, a joining device for joining the ends of the photographic film for photography, and a processing tank including a developing tank. apparatus. (2) The automatic developing apparatus for photographing photographic film according to (1) above, wherein the developing tank is a processing tank having a narrow processing path. (3) The photographic film for photography itself or a cartridge thereof carries photographic information for each frame, and has a control means for reading the photographic information for each frame and determining the replenishment amount of the developing solution. Further, the above (1) or (2) has a replenishing device for replenishing the developing tank based on this replenishing amount.
Processing method for photographic film for photography.

[0014]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Preferred embodiments of the present invention shown below will be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is an overall side view schematically showing a structural example of a photographic film processing apparatus 1 of the present invention.

The processor 1 is a photographic film for photography (hereinafter referred to as
A loading unit 2 for loading a film F, a processing unit 3 for processing the film F, a drying unit 4 for drying the processed film F, and a loading unit 5 for unloading the film F. The section 2, the processing section 3 and the drying section 4 are housed in a casing 100 which has a light blocking effect and can maintain light tightness.

The carry-in section 2 is provided with a photosensitive material supply section 21 for stocking a storage case of the film F, and a spool (core material) of the cartridge P is provided at the bottom of the photosensitive material supply section 21.
Tongue for rotating film to eject tongue of film F (tip)
A dispensing device (not shown) is provided. A cutter 213 is provided at the film withdrawing port of the photosensitive material supply unit 21, and when almost all of the film F is pulled out from the cartridge P, the film F is cut by the operation of the cutter 213 and separated from the cartridge P. It has a structure.

A discharge shutter 212 is provided at the bottom of the photosensitive material supply section 21, and the case in which the film F has been completely discharged is discharged from the discharge shutter 212. A cartridge accommodating section 22 in which an empty case is stored below the sensitive material supplying section 21.
The stored case is discarded to the outside through the shutter 221 provided at the bottom.

An operation panel 23 of the present processing apparatus is arranged near the photosensitive material supplying section 21.

On the other hand, the reading means 25 is disposed in the vicinity of the film drawing port of the sensitive material supplying section 21 via the cutter 213. The reading means 25 is for reading photographing information carried on the film F described later, and is a magnetic reading device having a magnetic head for reading information recorded on the magnetic layer of the film F in the present embodiment.

Further, on the carrying-out side of the film F with respect to the reading means 25, a joining for connecting and connecting the leading end of the film F withdrawn and the trailing end of the film F already carried out to the processing section 3 to each other. A device 24 is provided. This joining is performed, for example, by adhering the ends of both films F with an adhesive tape, or adhering or fusing the ends of both films F together. Specific examples of the joining device 24 include an adhesive tape, a sticking device, a heat sealer, a high-frequency fusing device, and a stapler.

The joining device 24 may be omitted depending on the transport mode of the film F.

The film F to be processed by the joining device 24 is continuously processed with the front and rear ends being connected.
Is processed within.

The splicing device 24 and the reading means 25 are arranged along the transport path of the film F. A reservoir 26 is provided between the processing section 3 and the splicing device 24, which will be described later.
Is provided.

As shown in FIG. 1, the reservoir 2
Reference numeral 6 denotes a pair of transport rollers 262 that are provided at the entrance of the developing tank 31 and are constantly rolling, and an interlocking roller 261 that is provided on the joining device 24 side and that responds to the film joining operation of the joining device 24. ing.

As shown in the figure, the conveyed film F is configured so as to be hung and conveyed between the conveying roller 262 and the interlocking roller 261. The reservoir 26 has a role (buffer function) of adjusting the difference between the speed of the film F pulled out from the cartridge P and the speed of transport of the film F in the processing section 3.

The processing section 3 is composed of a plurality of processing tanks. The processing tanks are the developing tank 31 and the bleaching tank 3 from the loading section 2 side.
2, the fixing tank 33, the washing tank 34, and the stabilizing tank 35 are arranged adjacent to each other in this order, and these processing tanks are filled with various processing liquids. Inside each of the processing tanks and between the adjacent processing tanks, a transporting means for the film F including rollers and guides is installed. The film F is conveyed by the path indicated by the chain double-dashed line in FIG.
2, the fixing bath 33, the washing bath 34, and the stabilizing bath 35 are sequentially dipped in the processing liquid to be processed. The arrangement pattern and configuration of the processing tanks in the processing unit 3 are not limited to those illustrated.

Each processing tank is replenished with fresh replenishing solution at a proper time, and the exhausted processing solution is discharged by overflow, whereby the composition of the processing solution in the processing tank is kept proper. Replenishment of each processing solution is performed by a replenishing device 7 provided for each processing tank, and the replenishing solution is sent from each processing solution tank provided therein to each processing tank.

In the replenishing device 7, the replenishing amount of the processing liquid is controlled by the control means described later.

The drying section 4 is the film F of the processing section 3 described above.
It is provided on the carry-out side.

The drying unit 4 blows hot air, for example, at 30 to 70 ° C. onto the wet film F processed by the processing unit 3 to dry the film F, and blows the hot air toward the film F. It is composed of 41 and a heater 42.

Next, the film F processed in the photosensitive material processing apparatus of the present invention will be described.

The film F has a structure capable of magnetically and optically recording information relating to exposure conditions at the time of photographing. An example of the structure of such a film F is shown in FIG.
Shown in

As shown in the figure, the film F is a long strip-shaped object, and has a screen (image portion) 90 formed by photographing (exposure) and both end portions of the screen 90 in the film width direction. Frame portions 91 and 92 formed respectively
It is composed of The frame section 91 mainly functions as an information recording section, in which a magnetic recording section including a magnetic layer is formed. That is, as shown in the figure, in the frame portion 91, the magnetic recording tracks 9 are formed on the front surface (emulsion layer side) or the back surface of the film F along the longitudinal direction of the film F.
3 (shown by hatching in FIG. 2) are formed. Then, in the magnetic recording track 93, for example, in a camera, information relating to exposure conditions at the time of shooting (hereinafter, simply referred to as information) is preferably magnetically recorded for each image.

When reading the information recorded on the magnetic recording track 93, the film F is conveyed in the longitudinal direction, and the magnetic head 251 constituting all or part of the reading means 25 is moved to the magnetic recording track 93. Information is taken out as an electric signal by being contacted.

On the other hand, the frame portion 92 is provided with perforations (holes) 94 for feeding and aligning the film in the camera or the like.

In this case, the formation density of perforations 94 is preferably 4 or less per screen, more preferably 2 or less, still more preferably 1 or 0.5 (when the screen is half size). Is.

As described above, by setting the formation density of the perforations 94 to 4 or less per one screen, in particular, by forming the perforations 94 only on one of the frame portions 92, the information recording portion such as the magnetic recording track 93 is formed. It is possible to secure a sufficient installation position and installation area.

The information recorded on the magnetic recording track 93 is the information necessary to know the degree of overexposure or underexposure of the photographed screen 90, in particular, the excess or deficiency of the exposure amount with respect to the sensitivity specific to the film F. is there. Specifically, certain information determined for each film such as film sensitivity, film type (for amateur, professional, manufacturer, etc.), presence / absence of strobe emission, shutter speed,
Information that is different for each image 90, such as aperture, LV value (shooting light amount value when the strobe is not used), whether or not there is backlight, the amount of strobe light used, the distance between the strobe and the subject, and the like, Use what you need out of these.

On the magnetic recording track 93, in addition to the above information, color temperature, shooting distance, focal length of lens, object contrast, shooting information such as shooting date and time, shooting location, film maker, film The film information such as the type and the film manufacturing date, the lab information such as the developing condition, and the like may be recorded.

The film information may be recorded, for example, at one location on one film, and the recording location may be at the leading end or the end of the film. Needless to say, the structure of the film F is not limited to that shown in FIG. For example, as the magnetic recording portion, a transparent magnetic layer may be formed on the back surface of the film F instead of the magnetic recording track 93, and the information may be recorded therein.

In addition to the color reversal film, the type of the film F may be a color negative film, a black and white negative film, a micro film, a direct photographing paper, or the like in some cases.

Further, it may have a long shape or a sheet shape. In particular, it is useful for a long film in that the exposure condition can be determined for each frame.

The size of the film F is not particularly limited, but a film having a width of 35 mm is usually used with high frequency.

Further, in the present invention, such information is not limited to being recorded on the film F itself, but may be magnetically or electrically recorded (stored) on the cartridge P which is a container for the film F.

That is, a magnetic recording track and an IC memory (neither shown) similar to the above may be installed in the cartridge P, and the same information as described above may be recorded (stored) in these.

When the cartridge P carries information in this manner, the reading means 25 is different from the configuration of FIG.
Is installed in the sensitive material supply unit 21.

As shown in FIG. 3, the information read by the reading means 25 is input to the control means 6 composed of, for example, a microcomputer. The control means 6 is housed in the operation panel 23, for example.

Further, information by a bar code formed on the film F or a DX code (neither shown) formed on the cartridge P may be inputted to the control means 6 if necessary.

The control means 6 extracts necessary information from the input information, performs a predetermined arithmetic processing based on the information, and determines the replenishment amount of the processing liquid in the developing tank 31 and the bleaching tank 32.

The operation sequence of the control means 6 of this embodiment will be described below.

FIG. 4 is an operation flow chart of the control means 6.

With the transportation of the film F, step 10
In step 1, the film information recorded on the leading end of the film F is read. In the next step 102, n memories for inputting the number of exposure screens 90 are initialized (0 is input). In step 103, it is determined whether or not there is photographing information for each screen 90 recorded on the magnetic recording track 93 of the film F being conveyed. If there is shooting information, the shooting information on the screen is read in step 104.
In the next step 105, the number of screens is counted, and the process returns to step 103.

In this way, steps 103-105
To read the shooting information for each screen 90. If it is determined in step 103 that there is no input information on the next screen 90, necessary information is extracted from the read information in step 106, and a predetermined correction coefficient g calculation process described below is performed based on that information. Do. This calculation processing will be described later in detail.

In step 107, the processing liquid replenishment amount R'of the developing tank 31 and the bleaching tank 32 is determined based on the above calculation result.

Then, in step 108, the replenishing device 7 is controlled, and the supply amount by the replenishing device 7 is controlled to the determined replenishing amount. Such a control operation is performed for each film F, and the most appropriate amount of the processing liquid is replenished for each film F to be processed. When the above information is stored in the IC memory, the information can be read instantaneously, so steps 102, 103, 104 and 10 are performed.
5 is unnecessary and the processing speed is improved.

Next, the calculation method in step 106 will be described in detail.

In the calculation, the film sensitivity in the film information and the allowable exposure screen number of the film (for example, 24
(Frames, 36 frames, etc.), number of exposure screens (number of frames), presence / absence of strobe emission in shooting information, shutter speed, aperture,
Information such as an LV value (a photographing light amount value when the strobe is not used), whether or not there is backlight, a light amount of the strobe used, and a distance between the strobe and a subject are appropriately used.

In the calculation method of this embodiment, all the exposure screens 90 are exposed with an exposure amount suitable for the film sensitivity without any missing frame, the strobe is not used, and shooting is performed under non-backlighting shooting conditions. Assuming that the film is present, the replenishment amount when processing this film is defined as the standard replenishment amount R ₀ .

Then, the correction coefficient when the standard replenishment amount is set to 1 is set in advance, and the average value of the values obtained by multiplying these coefficients for each screen is used as the correction coefficient g of the film to be processed. The replenishment amount R ′ of the film to be processed is determined by R ′ = R ₀ × g. Here, g is the following formula (1)
Is obtained.

[0061]

[Equation 1]

However, a ... Missing frame correction coefficient a = n / N (n is the number of exposed screens, N is the total number of screens that can be exposed on one film to be processed) b ... Exposure correction coefficient

The shutter speed and diaphragm that provide the proper exposure amount for the film can be set based on the film sensitivity and the LV value suitable for the film. When the exposure amount is over or under as compared with the appropriate value, the exposure amount correction coefficient b is set according to the exposure coefficient m, for example, as shown in Table 1 below.

The exposure coefficient m is defined by m = log E / S / log 2.

In this case, S is the film sensitivity [ASA] E is the exposure amount [lux.sec] of the exposure screen.

C ... Strobe correction coefficient

When a strobe is used, as a general tendency, when E ≧ S, the amount of exposure of the person in front is often large, so that the amount of silver developed is increased by about 10%.
When .ltoreq.S, the exposure amount of the person on the front side is larger than the average value of the entire screen, but since the surrounding area is not exposed so much, the amount of silver developed is reduced by 10 to 20%.

Therefore, whether or not the strobe is used is also used as the correction coefficient. In this embodiment, the settings are as shown in Table 1.

D ... Backlight correction coefficient

When shooting with backlight, as a general tendency, a tendency opposite to the strobe correction coefficient c is seen. Therefore, information as to whether or not there is backlight is also used as a correction coefficient, and the tendency opposite to the strobe correction coefficient c. The coefficient is specified in (see Table 1).

[0071]

[Table 1]

The replenishment amount R'of the processing liquid is determined by the above-described arithmetic expression, and the adjusting device 7 is controlled based on this value to supply the processing liquid at an appropriate replenishment amount.

Although the exposure amount correction coefficient b is set with the exposure coefficient m as a parameter, the exposure amount E may be used as a parameter as long as the film sensitivity S is constant. It is also possible to set one of the speeds as a parameter when the other is constant.

In the above example, the missing frame correction coefficient a, the exposure amount correction coefficient b, the strobe correction coefficient c, and the backlight correction coefficient d are all taken into consideration, but only 1 to 3 of these correction coefficients are calculated. May be taken into consideration for the calculation.

That is, in the above formula (1), any one or three of the four correction coefficients of a and b _j , c _j , d _j are set to 1, and one of these is not present. However, only three values may be calculated to obtain g.

However, by using these two to four values, the one set to 1 is eliminated, or one or two,
It is preferable to calculate in consideration of two or more of these.

It is most preferable to always consider the missing frame correction coefficient a. This is because the number of missing pieces most affects the fatigue of the processing liquid.

Further, in this embodiment, the replenishing amount of the processing liquid is changed to set the proper processing conditions. However, in addition to this, or in addition to this, the transport speed of the film F (processing Time), the temperature and concentration of the processing liquid may be changed to obtain processing conditions suitable for each film to be processed.

Although the control of the replenisher amounts of the developing solution and the bleaching solution has been described above, the replenishing amounts of the fixing solution, the washing water and the stabilizing solution may be further controlled. When processing a color film, it is effective to control the replenishment amounts of the developing solution, the bleaching solution and the bleach-fixing solution in order to properly bleach the silver to be developed.

Each processing tank typified by the developing tank 31 has a narrow processing path (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 62-89052,
63-131138, 63-216050, 64-26855 and 64-01855.
No. 548, etc.), and in this case, there is an advantage that the amount of processing liquid replenishment and the amount of waste liquid can be reduced, the processing efficiency can be improved, and the processing apparatus can be downsized. Since the amount of the liquid is small, the effect of controlling the replenishment amount of the processing liquid according to the present invention is more remarkable. As such a treatment tank, the treatment path width of 1 to 100 cm described in JP-A-63-216050, P3, upper right column, particularly 3.
5 to 50 cm, treatment path length 1 to 100 m, especially 2 to 6 m, slit width is 0.5 to 100 times 5 to 1000 times the film width
mm, especially 1 to 30 mm, and even 2 to 10 mm.

Although the method of the present invention has been described with respect to the case of developing a color negative film, the present invention is not limited to this. For example, various kinds of color reversal films, black and white negative films, microfilms, direct photography papers, etc. It can be applied to a photographic light-sensitive material for photography, and in the present invention, these are referred to as photographic film for photography.

Any known method can be applied to the photosensitive material, the composition of the processing solution, the processing procedure and the like, and these are described in the above-mentioned publications.

[0083]

As described above, according to the present invention,
Simply inserting a film that has been photographed allows for automatic development, and at the same time makes it possible to carry out more uniform processing, and obtains stable processing capacity, especially in a small processing apparatus with a small processing tank volume. It becomes possible.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram showing a configuration of a photographic film processing apparatus for photography using the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a partial plan view showing the structure of a film to be processed.

FIG. 3 is a schematic view in which a plan view showing a positional relationship between a film and a reading unit and a block diagram showing a control system of the reading unit, a control unit, and a replenishing device are combined.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a processing liquid replenishment amount determination routine.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 processing device 2 carrying-in part 21 sensitive material supply part 211 lid 212 discharge shutter 213 cutter 214 roller 22 patrone accumulating part 221 shutter 23 operation panel 24 joining device 25 reading means 251 magnetic head 26 reservoir 261 roller 262 roller 3 processing part 31 developing tank 32 Bleaching tank 33 Fixing tank 34 Washing tank 35 Stabilizing tank 4 Drying section 41 Blower 42 Heater 5 Carrying out section 6 Control means 7 Replenishing device 90 Screen 91, 92 Frame section 93 Magnetic recording track 94 Perforations 101-108 Step F film

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A photosensitive material supply unit for holding a cartridge in which a photographic film for photographing is stored, a tipping device for ejecting the tip of the photographic film for photographing from the cartridge, and photographing information carried on the photographic film for photographing. An automatic photographic film photographing apparatus characterized by having a reading device for reading, a device for separating the photographic film for photography from the cartridge, a joining device for joining the ends of the photographic film for photography, and a processing tank including a developing tank. Development processor. 2. The automatic developing processor for photographic film for photographing according to claim 1, wherein said developing tank is a processing tank having a narrow processing path. 3. The photographic film for photography itself or a cartridge thereof carries photographic information for each frame, and has a control means for reading the photographic information for each frame and determining the replenishment amount of the developing solution. 3. The method for automatically processing photographic film for photographing according to claim 1, further comprising a replenishing device for replenishing the developing tank based on the replenishing amount.